Compliant press-in technology was developed primarily by, and for, the telecommunications industry in the ’70s to replace soldered press-in pins. A major driving force was to eliminate the soldering process to avoid the thermal exposures of soldering processes and problems associated with those exposures.
The issue became more important as PCB took on higher functionality leading to increased number of layers and board thickness and mass. In addition, compliant press-in connections are readily repairable in comparison to the difficulties of soldered pin repair. Compliant pin application methods range from mass termination of board-to-board connectors containing up to 1000 positions in a single cycle in telecommunications applications to insertion of individual compliant pins into a PCB and pressing connectors onto the inserted pin field. Tooling for mass insertion ranges from single “flat rock” presses to automatic equipment that monitors insertion forces continuously to control the insertion process. The individual pin insertion process is very flexible and allows for different options to be customized on a PCB board family. Over the years compliant press-in technology has spread too many other industries including automotive and aerospace due to this manufacturing flexibility and excellent field experience.
Compliance is the key to this field experience. Consider a solid pin being inserted into a PTH in a PCB. A solid pin is essentially rigid and will experience little elastic